For the last couple of weeks I've been trying to beat the original, NES, Ninja Gaiden 1. I've only been savestating at the beginning of acts as I progress, and I think I have done act 6 at least a hundred times by now, because when you die against any of the final bosses, you get bumped all the way back to stage 6-****ing-1. Worse, if you actually managed to take down one or two of the bosses, when you get back to the remaining boss, you do not get the health refill that you would get were you facing the very first of the three bosses. The only advantage is you get to keep your scrolls and ninja arts for the first remaining boss.

I have literally been trying for hours to get this game done once and for all. I finally managed to pin down how to defeat boss 1 perfectly. I managed to develop a technique to take out the second boss with full health and no arts, and I also think I have a good strategy for the third and final boss.

And after killing the first boss and dying to the second boss and working my way, agonizingly back through act 6, after a couple of hours I managed to get to boss 2 with most of my health, 70 scrolls and the double fire wheel art. I just barely took him out with 1 hit point remaining.

I had the final boss down to 3 hp when I died against him.

So far I have done as well as to get to the final boss again with *NINETY SEVEN* scrolls and the double fire wheel, and about 75% of my life, but I died again. I had savestated just before the battle because if I died, I wanted to grind the ****er and perfect my technique against him.

Died 50 times in a row before I finally took the god damned piece of **** down with my last scroll.

Died 50 times....while abusing save states.

Tecmo should issue an international apology for the final boss mechanics of this game. This is literally the most rediculous boss I have ever fought in any game, ever.

In fact, Ninja Gaiden 1 is the *ONLY* game I actually owned for the NES that I *NEVER* beat with multiple repeated attempts. I had a couple other games I did not beat, but I only tried once or twice.

I seriously feel like spiking my controller into the ground.

And now I've aggravated my flu. I need to take some more tylenol and go back to bed. God damn it hurts when I cough right now after screaming "ARE YOU ****ING KIDDING ME?!" at my monitor repetedly over the last several hours.

Wow we knocked this thread off the first page...hooray end of lockout!

Anyway, I've been playing good ol' Sim City for the SNES, because I want something to half pay attention to while I do other stuff, and I'm discovering a lot of interesting things.

Having a war on the poor seems to be very fruitful. I took the bulldozer to every mid and low grade residential zone and replaced them with parks and I only lost a few thousand in population while my land values skyrocketed. Did the same thing with commercial zones to similar effect.

Also, if you want to relocate your seaport, build the replacement first and let its power get turned on before you bulldoze the old one. I bulldozed first and then replaced, and all my industry decided to punt. Lost a crapton of people.

I made a big mistake in getting Black Ops 2 instead of Far Cry 3. The BO2 campaign was decent but I am entirely bored with multiplayer and I have only been playing it for a couple weeks now. Time to trade in for FC3.

I made a big mistake in getting Black Ops 2 instead of Far Cry 3. The BO2 campaign was decent but I am entirely bored with multiplayer and I have only been playing it for a couple weeks now. Time to trade in for FC3.

The MP really is getting old.....I sure hope my Elite subscription that was extended into May still allows me to download the new DLC (coming end of Jan.) and that it contains a lot of good stuff.

The maps are too small and not always fun to play. There are no multi-player missions or obstacle courses to go through (took up a lot of my time on MW3) and the freakin semi-automatic Sniper rifle is a piece of garbage. How the heck can it be allowed to use a sniper rifle that fires a full magazine in half a second along with zero recoil???? Seriously, that sniper has less recoil than all of the SMG's.

The MP really is getting old.....I sure hope my Elite subscription that was extended into May still allows me to download the new DLC (coming end of Jan.) and that it contains a lot of good stuff.

The maps are too small and not always fun to play. There are no multi-player missions or obstacle courses to go through (took up a lot of my time on MW3) and the freakin semi-automatic Sniper rifle is a piece of garbage. How the heck can it be allowed to use a sniper rifle that fires a full magazine in half a second along with zero recoil???? Seriously, that sniper has less recoil than all of the SMG's.

Agreed. I read some of the reviews that made it sound like they had released a fresh, new version of COD but it feels very much like the same tired crap with a new paint job.

On the other hand, I really liked Far Cry 2 and the ability to freely roam a very large map in the single player. I loved the ability to sneak up on a post of enemies and take them all out. Also, the deteriorating weapons was a nice touch of realism. Even though Far Cry 3 isn't a direct sequel, they've had over 3 years to improve on FC2 and I've heard very good things.

So, been playing Sim City 4 recently, working on a region I created based on some actual terrain radar images I found on a NASA site, and I'm doing pretty good. Just broke a million region-wide residents spread across

Anyway, this is what happens when you attempt to build a city devoted to dirty industry, cheap coal power production, and region-wide landfill services, and you fail horribly at it: The City of Dirtfoot

No seriously, my region simply would not let me go the dirty industry route. It MADE me do this.

So, been playing Sim City 4 recently, working on a region I created based on some actual terrain radar images I found on a NASA site, and I'm doing pretty good. Just broke a million region-wide residents spread across

Anyway, this is what happens when you attempt to build a city devoted to dirty industry, cheap coal power production, and region-wide landfill services, and you fail horribly at it: The City of Dirtfoot

No seriously, my region simply would not let me go the dirty industry route. It MADE me do this.

Any idea if the new SimCity will be good? Always wanted to try one of them...

Any idea if the new SimCity will be good? Always wanted to try one of them...

It looks like it should be okay. It's a lot simpler than previous versions of it, and it seems like you have to use multiple cities to get certain things going, unlike in 2, 3, and 4 where you could just be self contained.

Also it has an always-connected DRM requirement for singleplayer, which I think is absolutely obscene. I will not be getting it until that form of DRM is removed (in other words at least 5 years).